


Asylum

by firebirdschild



Category: Beauty and the Beast (TV 1987), Fables - Willingham
Genre: Community: intoabar, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 10:11:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firebirdschild/pseuds/firebirdschild





	Asylum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wildforce71](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildforce71/gifts).



Mouse jumped and almost bolted as the bell rang when he opened the shop’s door.

“Quiet, Mouse,” he muttered sternly to himself. “Nothing to be afraid of here. Just a doorbell. Just a book store. Just people.”

Watching the slightly scruffy young man from his place behind the counter, Nod spoke. “Can I help you find something specific?”

Three quarters of the way down one of the shop’s narrow aisles, Blue slid his eyes off the page briefly to check out the newcomer before going back to the comic he’d been devouring.

“Books,” Mouse said firmly as he pulled himself up taller and straightened his shoulders just like Father had taught him. “Mouse needs a book. For a present.”

Nod cocked his head, one thin hand reaching up to scratch absent-mindedly at the thinning fringe of hair poking out from under the edge of his red woolen cap. “I’m Nod and this is my store so I know quite a bit about books. Now what sort of book does the person you’re giving this present to like?”

“Old books,” Mouse replied, with a quick flash of a smile. ““Even if he’s not exactly a person…” He muttered, a quiet, personal afterthought. 

Keen musician’s ears catching the quiet words, the pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place. He didn’t recognize the roughly shorn young man. And the name Mouse certainly was one he should have recognized. Sounded like someone who should be living up at The Farm. 

_Outsider._

Laying one finger between the thin pages to keep his place, Blue flapped his free hand, desperately trying to get Nod’s attention. Finally catching sight of Blue’s gesticulations, the elfin biblignost flicked his fingers toward the door. 

“Well then, my friend, I think I might have just the thing for you,” Nod gave the young man a broad, sharp-toothed smile as he waved him down one of the narrow aisles. “How does this friend of yours feel about fairy tales?”

Taking the hint, Blue laid the comic he’d been perusing carefully back on the shelf before quietly sneaking back to the front of the shop and slipping out the door.

***

Mouse’s “beast” wasn’t what Blue had expected. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d expected, but this? A cloaked mythic figure straight out of the Homelands carefully cradling a tiny babe swaddled in archaic looking bunting? This definitely wasn’t it.

“Are you certain you’re not one of us, Mr. Vincent?” Blue asked, his eyes drifting over the lion’s mane of tawny hair which framed the face inside the cloak’s hood.

“There’s no way of knowing.” The beast’s voice was low and smooth and Blue could understand why Mouse had wanted to buy him a book because a voice like that was meant for reading aloud to pass the long quiet hours. Especially when the man to whom the voice belonged had a babe so young as this one was. “I was abandoned as an infant outside Saint Vincent’s Hospital. I never knew who my real mother or father were.”

“And the child?” Blue asked carefully.

“Unlike me, my son will grow up knowing who his parents are.” Vincent’s eyes turned dark. “Were,” he corrected.

“Then your wife - “ Blue began.

“Catherine is gone,” Vincent whispered, words as drenched in sorrow as any widowed man tumbling from misshapen lips. “My son, my Jacob and I, we need a place where we can live as Catherine would have wanted. No more hiding from the sun. No more scrounging at the fringes of civilization. We need a home where Jacob can run and play in freedom. I do not want him to grow up knowing the enmity and revulsion that I have known.”

The babe squirmed, one fist reaching out from within his swaddling to grab at a wisp of his father’s hair. With inexorable patience, Vincent teased open the small hand, stroking and tickling each finger until the babe released his prize. 

“I can’t make any guarantees,” Blue murmured. “But I’ll talk to Snow. Like you said, we’ve no way of knowing what you are or where you came from. But that doesn’t make you or your son any less deserving of the haven we have than any other resident who lives at The Farm.”

“Thank you, Boy Blue. That alone is enough.”


End file.
